Your Biggest Pretend
by caledon
Summary: Interconnecting vignettes, oneshot collection, ratings and pairings may vary - Sora was filled with nothing but happy thoughts, feeling as though he could fly through the air. But that was dashed when Riku told him something he had never expected.
1. Free Fall

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to Square Enix and Disney.

A/N: Since playing Kingdom Hearts, I've been wanting to write a fanfic for the series. After multiple starting drafts, it was only when I rewatched the 2003 live action _Peter Pan_ movie that those many starts finally began to form something cohesive. So the inspiration to finally get this fic going, some imagery, and also the title are all thanks to Peter Pan (2003). I love that movie ^_^

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**Free Fall**

:

It started with a kiss.

It was one that, Sora had to admit, made him feel as though he could fly. He could just burst upwards straight to the sky and float away. For that moment of Kairi's lips pressing against his, he felt as though nothing he had ever experienced in the sixteen years he'd been living could ever top it.

When she moved away, he couldn't help the goofy grin that stretched across his face. He had been smitten with her for as long as he could remember, and he had never felt as happy as learning she felt the same way.

Really, everything in his life right now was absolutely perfect.

After a few more scattered kisses that couldn't wipe the grin off his face, she said goodbye and opened the door to her house, tucking her hair behind her ear and giving him a final, coquettish wave.

Carefully stepping backwards through the porch stairs, he tried not to stumble as he made his way down the walkway, and it was only when he reached the front fence did he finally turn to face forward to head towards his house.

But he felt restless. He wanted to do cartwheels and backflips and skip through imaginary hopscotch drawings on the sidewalk. He wanted to yell out to whomever could be bothered to listen that he was now boyfriend to Kairi—and at that he stopped. Of course, there was one very important person he had to inform about this change in his relationship status: his best friend, Riku.

Usually the three of them walked home together after school. But Riku had joined the blitzball team that Tidus and Wakka formed, and so most of his afternoons had been dedicated to practice and training. Turning back, Sora skipped on towards the public arena their makeshift team had reserved, entering through the double doors and following the signs towards the stadium, blue eyes lighting up at the sight of the open air giant sphere of water where the team had been doing their swimming drills.

Sora checked his watch as he dropped into the nearest seat, noting it would be another forty minutes before the team's practice ended. To pass the time, he took out his phone and proceeded to exchange messages of sweet nothings with Kairi.

So lost was he that he hadn't realized how much time had passed until he felt a tap on his shoulder.

"Hey," greeted Riku. "Saw you from the water. What are you doing here?"

"Oh hey!" grinned Sora, hurriedly clicking 'Send' before rising up and hitching his bag on his shoulder. "I was just waiting for you."

"You were?" Riku's expression became guarded, and it puzzled Sora. The silver-haired almost seemed nervous, green eyes shifting here and there as though afraid to look at him head on.

_What's wrong with him?_ Sora wondered, a look of concern erasing his smile.

But before he could ask, Riku said, "Let's step out. I have something to tell you."

The brunet followed his friend out of the arena. Outside, the sun was spreading oranges and pinks upon the sky as it set, and a soft, cool breeze played with the spikes of his hair. Sora thought it was a perfect sunset to end a perfect day, smiling as he felt his cellphone vibrate in his pocket, knowing Kairi had just replied to his last message.

Gazing forward, he saw the way Riku's shoulders hunched, weighed down with something Sora couldn't even begin to guess, and he picked up his pace, placing a hand on the taller boy's shoulder.

"Hey." He waited until the other boy turned to face him before continuing, "You said you have something to tell me?"

Green eyes roamed, watched cars passing along the street, watched the swarm of people around them heading in the direction of home or stores or restaurants. When they finally met Sora's bright blue eyes, Riku nodded his head to the park across the street, and they both walked towards the empty gazebo at its centre, away from the noise of the children at the playground on the other side.

Sora hopped up the steps, jumping up to try to touch the ceiling, laughing when he failed. He turned, smile becoming small when he saw Riku's unreadable expression.

The green eyes were soft, almost vulnerable. Step by step Riku grew closer, and for once, strangely, Sora felt his breath catch in his throat and an excited spark crawl up his spine. He'd always been shorter than Riku, but this time as he gazed up, he somehow felt...for lack of any other word...delicate.

"Sora." Riku's voice was soft and deep, sounding exposed, strained, as though his next words would bring some sort of finality that he had been trying to abate. He swallowed, and took a deep breath, briefly closing his eyes. When he opened them, the set of his shoulders had straightened, as though with the exhale that had burst out of him he had made a resolution from which he knew he could never turn back.

"Sora..."

The brunet raised his eyebrows and gave an imperceptible nod to prompt him to continue.

"...I've been—I-I mean for a long time now I've had—I have—"

"Riku?"

"I really like you, Sora."

The shorter boy felt as though the breath had been knocked out of him, and he couldn't help staggering back a step, feeling as though his heart was plummeting out of his chest.

"What I mean to say is that I'm in love with you."

Silence. That was all he could give; that was all that came out of him. He couldn't muster up a choking reply, and no matter how much he opened his mouth to form words, his voice wouldn't sound out.

_Riku is in love with me? But...but how can that be? And how long is 'a long time?'_

_And why now? Just when Kairi—_

At that, his eyes fell, unable to meet the waiting green gaze any longer. And it was only then when he was no longer held fast by those eyes that he finally found his voice. "Riku, I'm sorr—"

"—It's okay," the taller boy interjected, stepping back as though to give him space, and Sora could almost feel an invisible wall springing up between them.

Releasing a shaky breath, Riku quickly went on, "I've been bottling my feelings up, and it's been driving me crazy. I mean, I joined blitzball so I can think about other things, but it's just been constantly weighing on me. And I can't hold it in anymore." He forced out a laugh, and Sora grimaced at the underlying pain he heard. "I know you don't feel the same way. And even though there's no chance you'll accept my feelings, I just felt that I had to let you know. Finally."

Sora didn't know what to say, what to think, or how to feel about all this. He wanted so badly to reach out, knowing it must hurt a lot to know beforehand that Riku was going to get rejected. Before the kiss with Kairi, that was what Sora himself had been afraid of, and that was why he hadn't been able to reach out and make his feelings known to her. But this was different. He had gotten his happily ever after, and Riku wouldn't get his, and the last thing he wanted was to cause pain to his friend. But in this situation there really was no helping it.

Riku's voice had grown softer, smaller, dejected. "I know I probably ruined our friendship—"

Sora looked up, alarmed, a sharp breath tightening his chest, and he could only manage to shake his head in denial.

But the taller boy wasn't looking, his head bent down and the long strands of his silver hair covering his face as he continued, "—and I understand if you're disgusted or something and don't want to be friends anymore—"

At this Sora stepped forward and grabbed the front of Riku's shirt, surprising both of them. "D-don't say stupid things like that. You...you just surprised me. I had no idea you f-felt that way, and it's hard to take in." He bit his lip, almost disbelieving at how close they were, almost breathing the same air. Beneath his hand he could feel how hard and how fast Riku's heart pounded in his chest. Licking his lips, he huskily whispered, "But I know I don't want to lose you."

The brunet could just barely make out the green eyes peeking from beneath the silver bangs. "But you're weirded out," pointed out Riku.

"I know I am. B-but just give me time to work through that!" exclaimed Sora, shaking the other boy, letting the feeling of exasperation drown out the sinking feeling of losing control, leaning his forehead over the hands that still held fast to Riku's shirt. In a small voice, he mumbled, "Thank you, I guess...?"

"For what?" asked Riku puzzledly.

"F-for letting know how you—y-you know—a-about me. I-I mean I appreciate it? I think? I guess? I-I don't really know. But. Yeah."

He felt the dip of Riku's chin on his head as he nodded, the reply he breathed out blowing through the brown spikes of his hair. "Sure."

Eventually Riku stepped back, and with an awkward, heavily-laden silence they walked home together.

_I can't tell him about me and Kairi_, Sora thought. _Not yet._

_But, what now?_

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Thanks for reading :)  
May/2013


	2. When You Walk Away You Don't Hear Me Say

A/N: After thinking a lot about it, I decided to scrap the original second chapter, redo the whole thing, and turn this into a series of related vignettes instead of keeping this as a full-on multichaptered fic. It's easier for me that way since most of the bits and pieces I've been writing for this pairing isn't cohesive enough to be a proper multichapter anyway. Plus, experimental stuff like a series of interconnecting oneshots sound pretty neat and not as heavily-laden as yet another work-in-progress fic.

Disclaimer: KH belongs to SQEX and Disney.

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**When You Walk Away You Don't Hear Me Say**

:

"Let's forget it ever happened," said Riku, and Sora felt as though a vise had painfully clamped itself around his heart.

Past the lump that had risen in his throat, the blue-eyed boy managed to croak out, "Forget?"

"Um, w-what I said—" Riku swallowed, gaze veiled underneath pale lids and pale lashes and the pale shaggy curtains of his bangs, the corner of his mouth trembling that he had to bite his lip to try to rein it in. "—What I told you...about how I feel...f-forget that whole thing...let's pretend it never happened."

Falling. Falling. Sora felt as though he was being swallowed by something dark and dank, heart paradoxically palpitating wildly and yet stoppered, its beats halted and the crashing of the waves could not be heard and the warmth of the sun overhead could not be felt. Felt as though the weeks had rewound themselves to that moment when Riku said "I really like you, Sora. What I mean to say is that I'm in love with you..." and from the following days onwards until this moment he couldn't bear to look at Riku straight, didn't know how to act or feel around him with those words hanging between them.

He hadn't been able to help feeling awkward around Riku after his confession, disbelief coiling inside him that his best friend could harbour such feelings for him—it made him wonder what he did to make Riku have those feelings and what he could do to make those feelings stop and turn back time so that the easy camaraderie could be brought back. Because he hated how it changed things between them, he hated how he couldn't look Riku in the eye anymore, couldn't throw his arms around him or teasingly punch him in the arm or take him by the wrist and drag him around town without the weight of suspicion hanging at the back of his head, making him wonder if Riku would interpret these touches as more than they appeared to be, as invitation to more than Sora thought they ought to be.

So he avoided Riku. Only hung out with him if there were others around, acting as buffers between them. Riku, for his part, made it easy, citing blitzball meetings for lunch and blitzball practices after school, daily impromptu blitzball-related whatever in the mornings so that Sora and Kairi hardly ever saw him at all, never walking to and from school together anymore, never hanging out in the weekends anymore because Riku's life had seemingly been taken over by blitzball mania. Easier still in school where Riku was a grade ahead and didn't share any classes with him, only occasionally flashing by each other en route to their respective classrooms.

Sora couldn't help missing what they used to have.

He felt horrible for feeling guilty about Kairi revealing to all and sundry that they were together, almost terror-struck as he peeked under the drooping brown spikes of his hair at Riku's expression, seeing surprise and just a slight modicum of hurt in the green eyes, a split microsecond blink-and-you'll-miss-it vulnerable look of betrayal before they were veiled, closed off and buried under a congratulatory smirk, those green eyes roaming between the obliviously happy girl barnacled to Sora's arm and to Sora himself, chagrined and embarrassed and tentative and guilty, with a hand scratching the back of his neck, blue eyes not quite meeting green.

And now, this.

Everything that he wished for and more, wasn't it? The silver-haired offering him a clean slate, as though it was that easy, as though it was that simple and magical to just start acting like he never said those words, like he never felt what he claimed to feel. On a silver platter that Riku held out to him: their former friendship, a return to what they used to be.

This was good, wasn't it? For the best, yeah? So that there would be no more awkwardness, no more avoidance, no more guilt. He could have Riku back, the constant in his life, the looming figure that was always by his side.

He ought to feel elated—and he was, could feel the faint stirrings of it jumpstarting in his heart.

And then, he opened his mouth, surprising even himself with what came out.

"You're taking it back? You're giving up, just like that?"

Blue eyes rounded, and he clamped his teeth over his traitorous tongue. _What am I doing?_ he asked himself. _Why did I say that?_ He could hear the waves breaking on the shore again, could feel the heat of sunlight merging with the heat on his face, spreading from the tips of his ears all the way down to his toes, and his heart was racing, an out-of-control train chug-chug-chugging its way through his veins, making him suddenly aware of each and every single one of his pulsepoints.

For the first time in such a long time, green met blue, and Sora felt as though an electric shock slithered its sparks down his spine, made his stomach jump and recoil. Then a slight move, and those green eyes were hidden again, peeking through silver bangs. Hiding Riku, and oh how Sora was starting to hate those lengthy, unruly strands that made his best friend hard to read.

"I—it's not like I have a chance," Riku replied simply, defeatedly, and Sora couldn't think of anything to say to that, couldn't think of how to feel past the hitching inside his chest that made his belly recede into his spine, and he watched a deprecating smirk stretch one corner of Riku's mouth. "If I had known that you and Kairi had hooked up, I wouldn't have said anything."

At that, it was Sora's turn to avert his eyes.

"Let's pretend it never happened."

He couldn't comprehend why those words made him feel as though he was standing on the shore one moment and suddenly being pulled by the waves, made his heart sink, made his heart shrink. He couldn't comprehend why, instead of simply agreeing and ending this conversation and moving on with Riku's terms, he couldn't let go, scrounging and swimming after Riku's imaginary hand held out to him beneath the water. "But your feelings—"

"—Forget about them. Maybe it's just a phase or something. I'll grow out of it. Maybe."

_I'm just a phase?_ thought Sora, staggering back a step despite himself. _That's all I am to you?_ Something in him wanted to clutch at the desperation he sensed beneath the dismissive words.

"Look, I know how you feel about Kairi. You've been crazy about her since forever. And I don't want to get in the way of that. You deserve each other, yeah? I mean, this should be the happiest moment of your life, you finally got the girl of your dreams, and instead you've been miserable. And that's all that Kairi could talk about whenever she calls me. And I'm very sorry for ruining things between you. I just—I don't know...I shouldn't have said it. I should've known better. So let's just forget I said I lo—forget I said what I said. I was being stupid."

"Don't say that," said Sora softly, eyes trained to the bumps of Riku's collarbones visible through the vee of his top-buttons-undone shirt and pulled-down uniform tie, to the play of muscles in his throat as he spoke and swallowed. He wanted to grasp at the words, wanted to rebut, to say his friend shouldn't give up his own happiness, but Sora knew what that happiness would entail, what he himself would be giving up in the process. In the end, he could only settle with, "It's not—y-you're not stupid."

He felt tired suddenly, drained by his own contrariness. He couldn't understand why, now that he was being presented the chance to be relinquished from a love he didn't know if he could reciprocate, he wanted to hold on to it. What kind of a friend was he to want Riku to keep loving him from afar, knowing it would never be returned? It was horrible and twisted, and it pained him to know that he could be like to this to his best friend, the one who confessed to have fallen in love with him.

"Sora."

The pleading voice, a soft whisper. He didn't know why he felt a kind of thrill shiver through his nerve-endings. He didn't know why he wondered what it would be like to have that voice speak his name just like that but in a different context, right against his ear, spoken in deep, panting breaths. It was all too inappropriate, and he couldn't help shaking his head at it to disperse it from his mind.

"Sora, please."

He started, blue eyes shooting up, expressing deer-caught-in-the-headlights to those imploring greens, masking his growing treasonous feelings. He didn't need this conflict. He had Kairi now; he couldn't have Riku, he couldn't be that selfish, couldn't simply keep Riku feeling the way he felt and he himself keeping the both of them at an impasse of nearness and avoidance, look but don't touch, parading what they both couldn't have.

And so he took the offer, grabbed the silver platter. And pretended, just like Riku pretended.

It never happened.

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Thanks for reading :)  
July/2013


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